Top 5 People to get stuck in an elevator with

I've talked about my fascination with people and the cults of personality that pervade the lives of many a young person. Here is the list of personalities that pervade mine.

5. Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox has been an idol of mine since I was very young. Aside from having an incredible, unique singing voice, she's a passionate activist who has spent much of her life travelling and experiencing different cultures and communities, often lending her voice to those who suffer in silence. It would be wonderful to talk to someone who has had a life like that.

4. David Bowie

Yeah, another rock star. But wouldn't he have had the most incredible experiences? David Bowie was part of a crowd of young musicians in the 60's and 70's that included Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger and Lou Reed. He played at Live Aid, collaborated with Queen, and constructed multiple identities that went perfectly with his incredible music. Oh, and he was in Labyrinth.

3.Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Hugh Fearnley-Eatsitall is my current personality obsession. In fact, as I sit writing this post, I am watching River Cottage Road Trip, in which Hugh is currently fishing in the Lakes District. He is a pretty admirable human being, a chef who has spent the last ten years becoming an exemplar of seasonal and ethical cooking and eating. His tv programs and books have inspired me to eat better, more interesting and more sustainable food in my own diet.

2. Stephen Sondheim

I think this is somewhat self-explanatory considering my last post. Sondheim, simply, creates music and poetry that affects me. He has had a long, rich life (he's eighty!), has been instructed by Oscar Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein, and has written for Ethel Merman, Mandy Patinkin and countless other amazing performers. I would unashamedly pick his brains for hours and hours.

1. Stephen Fry

Well, he's not eighty, he's not a great musician and he's not known for being an activist, but I think having a conversation with the hyper-intelligent Stephen Fry would be just incredible. He's so smart, so funny, and probably full of conversation starters thanks to his role as Quizmaster on Qi.

Well, that's my 7x5 project finally over (very belatedly, please excuse me), thank you for reading, and I hope it's got you thinking about the art, writing, and personalities that intrigue and inspire you.

Top 5 Musicals

If you're familiar with this blog or with me in general, you're probably very aware of my love for musical theatre. This list is not ranked from 5th favourite to 1st favourite as most of my other lists have been, but rather in the order they "happened" to me.

5. Les Misérables - Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg

Ah, my first love. I associate Les Mis with a lot of "firsts". It was the first stage musical I was introduced to, the first ticket I bought with my own money... I sung "On My Own" in my first singing lesson, "I Dreamed a Dream" in my first public performance, and later got to play Fantine in my first lead role. It might be a little populist, but I think every musical theatre fan still loves Les Mis deep down, often because they've enjoyed performing it so much!

4. Sweeney Todd - Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler

Sweeney kind of goes here, and kind of goes in the number 1 position. It was the first Sondheim show I got into, largely thanks to the Tim Burton film (my opinion of which as an adaptation I will keep to myself...) and got me interested in Sondheim's other works (see the rest of this list), but right now Sweeney is also at the top of my list: I'm producing a performance of it for March this year. It's such a wonderful, funny, dark, romantic show that it's perfect for a student production.

3. Into the Woods - Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

One of the next Sondheim shows I discovered, and my all-time favourite book of a musical. In my opinion, Into the Woods is about the most perfect story, or collection of stories, ever set to stage. It all looks as though it's going to be horribly childish and moralistic, and then... act two happens. Into the Woods is right at the top of the list of musicals I need to perform in before I die.

2. West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim

I've never seen West Side performed live, I've only seen the film and heard a couple of cast recordings, but the reason this hits so high on the list is because it is completely badass. The incredible, complex score, the innovative use of movement and dance, and the beautiful, tragic story at it's core has made West Side Story a classic, a pivotal point in the history of musical theatre, and the platform on which the world was delivered a very young Stephen Sondheim.

1. Sunday in the Park With George - Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

This is my favourite musical. This is my favourite work of art. The team from Into the Woods perfect the artform with Sunday. It's so perfectly romantic and sad, it makes me cry and cry and cry every time I listen or watch it. I've never seen it performed, but I am on my toes waiting for a production to hit Sydney or Melbourne so I can go see it. And oh my goodness, I would die to play Dot. Or direct it. Or just listen to the original Broadway recording every day until I die.

So... that's a snippet of my musical theatre journey. A journey which, thanks to Sweeney and all the things that I'm sure will come after it, is far from over.

Top 5 Books

Oh lordy lordy, this is a very hard one. Also, it's kind of late, so I may have to do an Abridged Version Challenge for tonight's Top 5. Five words on each? Seems like a fair challenge to me!

5. If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino

Helped me understand postmodernism. Dense.

4. His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman

Got me reading "grown-up" books.

3. Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling

I am an obsessive nerd.

2. Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Best appropriation of Genesis EVER.

1. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Perfect portrayal of love and grace. (that one deserves six!)

Somehow that took me longer than writing full paragraphs... Oh well. I heartily recommend every single one of those books, each worth reading in their own way. I feel like a book can really change your life in a way that nothing else really does, and that's what Les Miserables did for me. What do you other bookworms think?

Top 5 Films

It's very hard for me to do a Top 5 Films list without at least three of them being film-musicals, I hope everyone appreciates that difficulty.

I'm not generally a feature-length sort of girl, really, due mainly to the combination of factors a) that I'm too much of a penny-pincher to see films whilst they're at the cinema, and b) that I fall asleep during anything over half an hour long when watching it at home. I don't go in for "movies" a lot, so please excuse how pretentious this list looks - I assure you it represents the films that have really stayed with me.

5. Picnic at Hanging Rock

This film was the first film I ever studied, in year 7 English. There are three things that really stick in my mind with this film - the opening quote: "All we see, and all we seem, are but a dream... A dream within a dream..." - the beautiful-slash-completely creepy panflute-dominated score, and the strange, sometimes disturbing aura of pubescent feminine sexuality that pervades the film. The howling winds (genuinely recorded at Hanging Rock), the omnipresent ants, the white roses pinned to every breast, Sarah's straining, tragic affection for Miranda, and the unanswered question of the girls' disappearance make the film so perfectly disjointed, truly one of the great mysteries of our culture.

.. That being said, if you read the last chapter of the book on which it's based, it transpires that they've all turned into bush-dwelling creatures. Which not only destroys the mystery but is a very crap ending. Great thanks go to Peter Weir for avoiding that one.

4. Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog has got to be one of the best pieces of storytelling I've ever born witness to. The way that Jamal's story weaves so perfectly through the questions, the way his life is reflected back on to you as an audience is just so wonderful and engaging, not only did I sit through the whole thing, but I stayed awake watching it again at home. Jai Ho indeed!

3. Akira

If you haven't seen this film (1988, first example of a completely cel-animated feature) then I cannot explain it to you. Go watch it, it's a visual masterpiece and an unusually intricate and genuinely disturbing representation of a futuristic dystopia. No seriously, just go watch it. The reason that it's on my list (and it's the one film that hasn't left my top 5 since I was 13) is because I think it's so important to the way that film has developed as a medium, not to mention art and anime practice.

2. Y Tu Mama Tambien

This film hasn't left my Top 5 since I was 15, so that's also a pretty big deal. Y Tu Mama tells the story of two young men who pick up an older, married woman and whisk her away on a varyingly debaucherous and introspective road trip, learning many important lessons on the way. The reason it's imprinted itself so successfully on my soul is definitely due to the tragic ending it has - the two young men are estranged by their sexual experiences with each other, and the woman leaves their lives just as she entered them, suddenly and without warning or explanation. I cannot describe how hollow I felt after I watched it for the first time, its a beautiful sort of ache that I don't think I've ever experienced again.

1. Love Actually

And now for something completely different!

Well, we're coming up to Christmas and Love Actually is my favourite film. I'm not too proud to admit that four amazing, affecting and important films (and the rest) rank below this one for me. Because it's a British rom-com featuring all my favourite British boys (Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Andrew Lincoln, Colin Firth and Alan Rickman) that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling and always puts me in the mood for that tea-and-biscuits, cuddly brand of romance.

Eclectic, no? That's definitely the case with me and films, they're not really my thing until one I love comes along. What are your favourites?

Top 5 Artworks

Because it's almost midnight and I've got some serious spooning to get to, tonight's top five will be in pictures.

Enjoy the brevity, it's brought to you by a solid two hour work-email writing session.

5. Marc Chagall - The Dance

4. Leonardo da Vinci - Leda and the Swan

3. Davide - The Death of Marat

2. Hieronymous Bosch - The Garden of Earthly Delights

1. Salvador Dali - The Metamorphoses of Narcissus

Top 5 Songs

As someone who has been indoctrinated into a sort of classical mindset about music (thank you, dear) I find the word "song" very difficult to negotiate these days.

"Songs" are not "pieces", and some of Saturday's Top 5 are definitely "pieces". I've had to set myself one rule in making this list (a rule that makes things much easier, I will add) in that sections of musicals or operas, no matter how distinct as "songs", do not count. They are part of a greater work and therefore do not belong in the category of stand-alone musical "pieces". It also means that when I come to do my Top 5 Musicals, I wont have already mentioned them all now.

I think music triggers emotion and certainly emotional memory in a way nothing else really does, and that's why I think every song or piece someone puts in a list like this has to be meaningful, has to have a story. I know mine all do.

5. Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saens

Danse Macabre is pure classical pop, I know, but it was one of the first pieces I listened to after deciding to make an effort with the "classical" genre, and it stuck with me. I remember hearing it and being so taken in by the furious rhythms and strange tonality... until I played it in orchestra. Let me tell you right now there is nothing interesting about the double bass part, kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

Still, the fantastic waltz-beat of it and the amazingly eerie and supernatural sound-world it creates pulled me in and reawakened my passion for music, so for that it most definitely deserves a place on this list.

4. Hounds of Love - Kate Bush

From classical pop to actual pop... I love this song. This one's "story" is pretty crap, but the song is an absolute masterpiece of chipmunkery and for that I laud it's name. Kate Bush is, of course, a complete maniac, but I love love love her music, and especially this song. Nothing in the world motivates me to get up and throw myself out into the world like Hounds of Love does, a statement proven by the fact that I listened to it every morning on my way to school in the last month before I graduated. Before exams, before studying, whilst procrastinating studying - Kate Bush's greatest hits kept playing, and Hounds of Love kept on getting put on repeat.

3. Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 - J.S. Bach

This story has to be picked around, for there is something of a risk of over-share in relation to this piece. Of course, this is the first section of one of Bach's most beautiful works for solo cello, the sound of which is instantly recognisable because of how widely it is used in film and television, but for me it just speaks volumes of earnest, straining, youthful love.

The first time I heard Roman play this piece, we weren't together. I think I was thinking about it, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't... that's kind of how it happened - I suggested it to him and he said "you know, I'd never really thought about it like that" - like all great romances, hey?

So anyway, I downloaded this piece and played it over and over, lying on my bed, worrying about whether my Great Love would ever love me back. And it's just the music for it.

A summer later, the Prelude's story came full circle for me. On some awful hot day, I lay on my back in my Great Love's music room, listening to him play it - just for me.

2. Call Me Al - Paul Simon

This is the Family Song. There are so many stupid, funny memories associated with this song that I can't think of any specifically, it's all melted into some silly pot of full family air-instrument bands whilst Paul Simon blares out unacceptably loudly over long car trips. Paul Simon, especially the Graceland album, makes me think of my dad, and my family, and all the wonderful, wacky love that exists there.

(I bags the air-trumpet).

1. With or Without You - U2

This song is not number one because I love the song. In fact, I've quite gone off it in the last couple of years, something about Bono being a rather large tool or something, but the moment in my memory that explodes into my mind every time I hear it is so pure and so clear that I can't ignore it.

When I was in year 12, I arranged a girls' vocal version of With or Without You for a concert, and the absolute most perfect moment in the entire song was decidedly the moment when the bassline comes in. It's low, even, and throbbing, it helps the music build in such an intense, emotional way that it's just perfect.

On the actual night of the concert, the music started, and as that beautiful bassline came in, I looked across the stage and saw Roman with my old electric bass slung over his shoulders, tapping away at it, and I couldn't help but beam.

That was such a moment for me, a completely still crystallised moment in time, in which I realised, so instantly that my inner-voice actually spoke the words, that I was in love.

I don't think it matters whether it's a song or a piece, whether it's interesting and artistic or a three-chord band job, the music that stays with you is always the music that was playing at that moment in time. We all have them, musically-triggered recollections. I think that's what is important to me about this project, that I can take all these moments where art has touched me and record them, leaving a perfect record of what matters to me at this moment.

Top 5 Television Programmes

I probably watch too much tv. Not actually ON the television, mind you. Most of the programmes on this list come care of youtube, or dvds put on to play in bed with Roman, as is probably evident from the sheer Englishness of them.

The whole concept of the Top 5 asks some interesting questions. How do "works of art" effect the people who watch/listen/experience them? Even television programmes effect us, the multitudes of online forums devoted to shows, characters and particularly relationships prove that they do.

Cults of personality run rife in tv-watching, and I am totally guilty of that. You'll notice some names that repeat over the course of my Top 5 this evening, starting with...

5. Qi

Stephen Fry's stomach-achingly funny BBC panel show, featuring my idee fixe du jour, Alan Davies, who looks less like Roman and more like Roman's dad in the present day. Still wonderfully funny, he is joined by three guest panelists and rigorously quizzed on Quite Interesting facts by Stephen Fry, a.k.a. The Lord of All Things Wonderful. Its series' are lettered rather than numbered, and every episode has a theme based on the series' letter. Also, it makes for great conversation starters, for example "Here's a Quite Interesting fact - earth has two moons!" You can't help talking with implied capitals and exclamation marks.

4. A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Stephen Fry's second but not final appearance on this list. Simply put, the best sketch show ever. The vox pops are incredible, the amount of drag costuming is incredible, the way that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie interact is incredible. Totally worth exhausting youtube's supply of clips.

3. Absolute Power

Here he is again! Stephen Fry and John Bird star in a sadly short-lived comedy about a Public Relations company and their dirty dealings. Featuring such plotlines as "sexing up" the House of Lords, accidentally killing a performance artist by draining all his blood, spinning a British neo-Nazi party and everyone sleeping with Jaime.

2. The West Wing

I don't think there are many people who haven't seen The West Wing. I don't think there's much I can say about it, either. My dad has all seven seasons on disc... we didn't see him for a while after that happened. It's a completely engrossing series with amazing attention to detail and beautifully fleshed-out characters. I don't mind admitting that I've seen every episode at least twice, and every episode featuring Danny Concannon at least five times.

1. Jonathan Creek

Ah yes, the ultimate cult of personality. Jonathan Creek is the most wonderful concoction of a character. The idea of super-analytical mystery solving with a socially awkward, accidentally charming genius with his brash red-haired sidekick (who I really identify with... she's slightly uncoordinated and can't keep her mouth shut) is just immensely appealing. The relationship between Jonathan and Maddy (aforementioned brash red-haired one) is fantastically interesting and endearing. A will-they-wont-they that doesn't grate the way some of the American sitcom relationships do, just a perfect imperfect love story that is always funny and eventually just a bit sad.

Television can be decidedly banal, but I think we can all admit that it's sometimes exactly what you need when you have to switch off and relax. Speaking of, I'm off to watch season D of Qi... night all.

7 x 5

I'm starting a project. Sheer boredom really, but I feel it's moderately likely to help me streamline my ideas about art and life. Possibly.

The idea actually comes from a seriously bad/funny film called High Fidelity, in which the two main characters, who work in a record shop, are constantly quizzing each other on their Top 5 hit B-sides, Top 5 Drummer-turned-Lead Singers, etc, as you can imagine.

So - seven days of Top Fives.

FRIDAY - TV Shows

SATURDAY - Songs

SUNDAY - Artworks

MONDAY - Films

TUESDAY - Books

WEDNESDAY - Musicals

THURSDAY - People to get stuck in an elevator with

From easiest to write about to most difficult - and interesting - to write about, starting tonight.